"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

The post title, of course, is from Michelle Malkin’s morning after column, which was a bright torch amid the gloom of Obama’s victory. Indeed, conservatives must stand tall, resist the siren songs of “moderation” and “compromise” and continue to present America with a choice, not an echo. We must take note of things that went wrong, but keep in mind that there were things that went well; these are both summed up well by Dana Loesch. So, to echo Lenin, what is to be done?

We can start with Bill Quick’s angry post-mortem. As much as I respect Ed Morrissey, Bill is absolutely correct to savage him for the “messaging” nonsense he’s spouting, which is no different from the kind of crap we used to mock Thomas Frank for pooting forth. We’re dealing with people that would rather be hip than smart, and “fairness” has always been an easier sell than the fable of the Little Red Hen, especially if you’re one of the hipsters who wants their bread and circuses for free. Bill also makes the point that we were wrong about the polls and Nate Silver was right; our desire to believe that America was still a center-right nation blinded us to the ugly reality of the polls, and as happens every time you wish away bad news or unpleasant facts, they come back to bite you.

We can then look to Mark Levin, who called for Karl Rove to get off the stage, and linked to this Bloomberg article that openly mocked Rove as “Biggest Super-PAC Loser”. Stacy and others have been saying for years that the Establishment GOP and their consultant pilot fish need to be forcibly retired, and this massive failure on the part of the Establishment calls for not just retirement, but a wholesale application of wooden stakes and decapitations. This is the second Presidential election in a row that we have lost thanks to The Powers That Be anointing a “moderate, electable” candidate who was promptly painted as a soulless monster by the Democrats and the press (BIRM); in the end, they turned out not to be so electable after all. Worse, their much-vaunted ad spending didn’t buy us victory in the places we needed it the most, while Obama’s Operation Narwhal identified marginal voters and got them to the polls.

I think the conflict between the Washington Establishment and the TEA Party needs to come to a head, and we need to make sure the TEA Party wins. We need to build on those populist networks and rebuild local GOP party organizations from the ground up, allying with the Ron Paul libertarians to take power away from Washington and return it to Richmond, Austin, Nashville, Raleigh, Salt Lake City and the rest of the state capitals. We need conservative precinct captains and volunteer cadres who know the territory (and their neighbors) far better than any last-minute PAC-sponsored crew of door-knockers ever could. For too long, we’ve allowed the party of Main Street to be run from K Street, and now in this moment of defeat, we have a chance to reach out to the Stewart Adelsons and Bob Perrys and convince them that they can get more bang for their buck by supporting the little grassroots platoons instead of the big, plush headquarters that spent so much and accomplished so little.

This local emphasis also addresses the problem of culture change. We have a Kulturkampf on our hands and have had for decades, but we’re beginning to fight back effectively. This is another area where we have an advantage over liberals. On balance, we tend to be more polite and friendly, less snarky and prone to hectoring and preaching. We can use those advantages to reach out one on one to disaffected minorities and other people who are getting hosed by the seemingly endless misery of the Obama Depression. We may not change enough minds in two years, or even four, but we have to remember we’re playing the long game. It took the progressives most of the last century to get their hooks into education, entertainment, and news media, and it may take us just as long to take them back or (more likely) supplant them with schools and media of our own. That doesn’t mean we should give up; this is a #WAR, and we are all Breitbart’s soldiers in it.

Once we control the local parties, from townships to state committees, WE will be the ones deciding who the candidates are. We will have the ability to block another “moderate” like Mitt Romney or Stacy’s Crazy Cousin John from the nomination. We will take our government back at every level. It all starts with us, in our precincts and wards, building a political force of extraordinary magnitude, purging the Karl Roves and any other talking head who thinks they can control the party from a K Street office. It starts with you. It starts today.

Comments

This is the intent of my post, to encourage local TEA Party groups to mobilize, take over local GOP organizations, and do just that.

Wombat_socho

You want to argue with Bill, do it at his blog. While you’re here, mind your manners.

Rick Bulow

NICE! This will be mentioned on my radio show (Red, Right, and Blue every Saturday at 1:30 PM Eastern) tomorrow if it is all right.

Wombat_socho

And so the answer is to walk away? No. This is our party, and it’s time people like you and me took it away from the incompetent losers running it into the ground.

Wombat_socho

Absolutely. Thanks, Rick.

http://thecampofthesaints.org Bob Belvedere

Exactly.

http://thecampofthesaints.org Bob Belvedere

Get new friends.

http://thecampofthesaints.org Bob Belvedere

A noble idea, Wombat, but I tried that twice over the last four years [ala: Frank Meyer] and got viciously attacked by both sides. It ended up with me stating: ‘I will fight no more forever’.

http://thecampofthesaints.org Bob Belvedere

You often are very insightful, QM, but the GOP did not start out as a ‘leftist party’.

Certainly, in the late 19th Century, they [and the Democrats] caught the Progressive fever, but Abraham Lincoln was a free market champion.

And don’t raise the Confederate Flag – the South WAS WRONG on slavery. They should have stayed in the Union and fought the battle in the Public Square and the Legislatures, but, no, they picked-up their marbles, threw a tantrum, and went home. [BTW: I say all this as someone who i sympathetic towards Randolph of Roanoke.]

Sometimes the cancer has spread so ubiquitously that one has to declare the patient terminal.

I think it behooves us to consider implementing OPERATION: WHIG and forming a new party with conservatives [and perhaps with small ‘L’ libertarians] firmly in control [please see here for an explanation by me of the difference between the two types of libertarian].

http://thecampofthesaints.org Bob Belvedere

I would still classify him as a conservative. As Russell Kirk wrote:

The attitude we call conservatism is sustained by a body of sentiments, rather than by a system of ideological dogmata. It is almost true that a conservative may be defined as a person who thinks himself such. The conservative movement or body of opinion can accommodate a considerable diversity of views on a good many subjects, there being no Test Act or Thirty-Nine Articles of the conservative creed.

http://thecampofthesaints.org Bob Belvedere

I thought the Lenin quote was a nice, witty touch.

Wombat_socho

Funny, that’s what Al Collins of Jason & The Scorchers (and husband to the awesome Stacie Collins) told me when I said most of my friends were into electronic music.

http://thecampofthesaints.org Bob Belvedere

Name dropper!

Dai Alanye

Once more I feel required to straighten-out everyone. It’s a dirty job but, etc…

With benefit of hindsight, this election was lost when Republicans and libertarians joined the Dems in blaming the extended recession on Dubya. The narrative was set, and it carried a failed president to victory. All the excuses (Typical: “Obama can’t be expected to fix all of Bush’s mistakes in a mere four years.”) were accepted by a sufficient number of voters to carry practically all of the swing states.

The main problem wasn’t Romney, although his failure to aggressively attack Obama’s policies didn’t help. Nor was the problem Carl Rove, “the establishment” or any other individual or group, not even that weasel Christie. The major problem lay in not aggressively counter-attacking the Dem propaganda that successfully blamed the economic meltdown on Bush rather than their own policies. We failed to sufficiently stress, among other matters, that the problems started right after the Dems took over Congress in 2006.

As exit polls reveal, millions of voters still blame our economic difficulties on Dubya. And it was partly the fault of Repubs, libertarians and conservatives that they did so.

ThomasD

Actually, I had no intention of arguing will Quick. As a matter of fact my original statement was that it is pointless to engage with Quick.

He is more concerned with the dark shadows of an impending reichwing theocracy rather than noting that it is actually the progressives who are lockstep imposing a secular puritanism over the nation.

Pediatricians have been questioning parents about guns in the home for over a decade, was this a ‘conservative’ idea? No.

And does Quick honestly think that Obamacare isn’t going to weasel it’s way into every other private detail of your life? How could he honestly fail to see that coming? Not like Mayor Bloomberg hasn’t been dropping their markers on a weekly basis.

No, Quick would rather traffic in anti-conservative agitprop, all the while claiming to have no truck with the left. So in response to your earlier comment about me being ‘over the top’ consider that -In that sense- he is exactly like Sullivan.

If you find this commentary to be ‘unmannerly’ then so be it.

Adobe_Walls

The War of Northern Aggression wasn’t about slavery. The second won’t be either.

http://marezilla.com/ Zilla of the Resistance

Very well said, Wombat. This is why you should write more here.

http://boogieforward.us/ K-Bob

He’s definitely part of the axis of squish. I used to love reading his stuff before he moved over to write alongside of AP, who is also pretty squishy.

These are the folks who joined the rush to elbow folks like Palin, Cain, and Santorum aside (Krauthammer, the powerline guys, Hot Air, a blogger who must not be named but gets quoted often here, and several others who tried their best to dampen the spirits of Tea Party activism). The constant cries of “high negatives” from that camp assured us of someone as milquetoast as either Romney or Pawlenty.

Jaynie may be off her meds (and forgetting her role in elbowing aside the same sorts of folks), but she’s correct about fighting back against the dishonest crap from the left. The squishes are forgetting that Buckley himself had no trouble getting in people’s faces when necessary.

http://boogieforward.us/ K-Bob

Plenty of folks classifiable (I just made that word up) as conservatives are squishes. It’s what leads to “own goals” like Christie’s totally unnecessary and self-serving lauding of Obama.

http://boogieforward.us/ K-Bob

Excellently wroten, sir.

The long march to restoration has to start where we can make a difference.

http://boogieforward.us/ K-Bob

It was the Rove types who wanted us to refrain from doing the things you claim we should have done. Who was doing it best? Palin, Bachmann, Santorum (he got stuck debating gays and abortion too often, though), Gingrich (sorry, Stacy, but yes, Gingrich). All of those folks were hitting back, for points.

But the Rovians wanted them safely off the stage, with their high negatives, and their baggage. Instead, we get a guy that two-thirds of us had to go against our own principles to support.

http://boogieforward.us/ K-Bob

So conservative philosophy is like Latin. A great thing to study, but not to actually use.

http://boogieforward.us/ K-Bob

Me, too. I had to go look it up, though.

http://boogieforward.us/ K-Bob

It was turned into a war about slavery long before it was finished, though. WWI wasn’t fought over an assassination, either.

http://boogieforward.us/ K-Bob

Up until Romney won the primary, I thought we were poised to do exactly that.

We failed in that attempt, and I stated at the time it was a failure that would take a generation to repair. We had a movement, and the Rove types (and the big money backers of them) jumped out in front of it with a fake parade marshall.

I’m not sure if a new party is still a bad idea.

TPNWUTD

Third Parties Never Work, Until They Do.

But it bears further study. We don’t need a crank party.

http://boogieforward.us/ K-Bob

The primary is not the general.

Any of the conservative candidates could have done at least as well as Mitt, and possibly better in the general, once the party was behind them.

Mitt had his gaffes. They (the other Republican candidates) would have, also. But in presenting “an alternative to vote for, instead of a similarity to consider instead of” Any of them would have been fine. As to the debates, they all had strong performances in debates. Just not all the time.

The right has a real problem with White Knight syndrome. If the armor isn’t perfect, and the teeth gleaming, and the portfolio without blemish, then they must be banned! Meanwhile the pot-smoking, vacation junkie who never shows up for briefings and thinks we have 57 or 58 states has won again.

(EDIT: I’m not saying any of them were better candidates overall than Romney, but I am saying that after the primary, everything changes, and any one could have turned out to be better)

http://boogieforward.us/ K-Bob

Plus, as intelligent as he is, he wasn’t versed on the things that made this country possible. He couldn’t articulate the philosophy, he could only speak on how to fix stuff. That made a thin platform to run on.

Allen West has the understanding Cain lacks. I would have loved to see him as the VP selection. What a missed opportunity.

http://boogieforward.us/ K-Bob

And those primaries were driven by what, exactly? People making guesses in some voting booth after watching the debates?

Come on, man. You know how they work.

Although the hardcore LP types are generally unpredictable and difficult, a HUGE number of lowercase ‘l’ libertarians would be good for such a new endeavor.

Adobe_Walls

A mere expedience.

http://boogieforward.us/ K-Bob

New Hampshire most definitely needs to change it’s state motto.

“Free Stuff Or Die” sounds about right.

http://boogieforward.us/ K-Bob

Hah!

http://boogieforward.us/ K-Bob

Being pessimistic isn’t fun. I have already begun to laugh more, since Tuesday. And I shall continue to do so, even while preparing for hard times ahead.

http://boogieforward.us/ K-Bob

We need to find ways to fight back on that, though. Like Andrew Breitbart’s retweeting all the nastiness aimed at him on the tweeter. More Stephen Crowder stuff.

We have to ridicule them mercilessly, and only support news outlets that cover “both” sides so we can fight back.

http://boogieforward.us/ K-Bob

I forget where you linked your article, but I read it, and agree with your take.